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cathartes-aura-shitposting · 8 months

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ARGONUS INFO: the five point interspecies relationship test

(NOTE: description copy-pasted from DA where i normally post my works. any context that is missing here on tumblr can be found on my DA [linked here and on pinned post] )

[TW WARNING: this post is meant to make a proper guidelines on interspecies relationships. this will make mentions of bestiality, rape, and pedophilia. scroll down at your own discretion]

[the above is best viewed if opened in new tab]

welp, too late to back down now. moderate mature filter on for soon-to-be clear reasons.

behold: the harkness test!

no, seriously. this is my take on the harkness test if it was an actual thing people had to rely on to make sure their relationship with their alien anthro wolf GF is legal and moral. and, trust me, i may be a complete weirdo furry in the eyes of many, but i'm far, far, FAR from the degeneracy that the furry fandom can get to at times (and if the infamous *REDACTED* The Wolf incident and eerily similar ones have taught me anything, it's that the degenerousy can make the mariana trench look like a pond with how rock bottom it is). so, i decided that the entirety of my omniverse needed some kind of ground for what would be considered bestiality and what wouldn't. thus, the five-points interspecies relationship test (aka the five-point test) exist. technically not quite a test, but more of a law that exist to protect sapient species in relationships and set a very clear ground between bestiality and a regular ass relationship (Mainly sexual relationship). usually, by the time a world has implemented this law the world already has other sophonts species well-established in their society.

i got mostly everything down on the image, but i'll go into each and every point for extra clarification.

1-are both parties of equal sapience and intelligence? obviously directed towards sapient beings. this is usually where it starts. 2-are both parties of legal age for their respective species? this law typically refers to not only the age of sexual maturity but also the age of consent. however, this law will often times also include the legal age of marriage as well.

3-are both parties able to properly communicate with and understand eachother? this directly ties into both 1 & 2, as you need both to even get to this part. both parties MUST be able to communicate with eachother via proper language, and MUST understand eachother's languages should one party not speak the other party's language. in the majority of world, typically both parties must speak the same language. unlike the harkness test, BODY LANGUAGE DOES NOT COUNT EVEN IN "SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES"! this is because many sophont that are incapable of speaking/understanding other languages will often always have a translation device, such as a collar, a microchip, ect. the only "special circumstances" that would otherwise force both partied to use body language is if they are unable to communicate at all, temporarily, for a short period of time. key word on "Temporarily, for a short period of time", since that's the only possible exception in this case. even then, it's still pretty dangerous to solely rely on body language. so if you really want to get it on, it's best to wait until both parties are able to communicate again.

4-are both parties able to properly consent to eachother's actions? this one's rather self-explanatory, and a pretty solid question at that. this, again, ties into all three previous questions.

5-DO BOTH PARTIES CONSENT THE THE ACTIONS OF EACHOTHER? aaand this final part of this law/test/questionnaire is perhaps one of THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION in this test. this part is known as "the criminal trap", as certain types of (let's say "really horrible a deplorable") people will take everything above and think to themselves "yup, everything says yes = automatic consent". unfortunately, though, just because they passed all four of them does not mean they automatically consent. thus, this final part is extremely important to make sure that doesnt happen.

now i'll admit that, while the five-point test is very important to world full of different races and sapient beings, it's not entirely foolproof. some places are very strict about following this rule to a point were said relationships are downright impossible, other places tend to care so little about the law that people are able to get away with breaking this law (...and many other laws as well). the more beings that enter into other worlds and intergrate into said world's society, the more important it is to make sure this law is not only put in place, but also to make sure it is as balanced as possible.

also, here are a couple extra facts:

-like stated in the image, even in worlds were this law is put in effect, the actual public reception on said relationships can vary, often having some influence on the law itself. for example, on modern-day argonus elkinets are generally pretty good at implimenting and enforcing this laws, but still have some stigma about certain non-elkinet species. "interpecies" relationships between two different elkinet species have been around for as long as the elkinets themselves, and to them a human-elkinet relationship is no diferent than that of any other relationship. however, relationships between elkinets and uplifted/sentient animals (dinosauroids, common ponies, tranforgees, ect) are often viewed in a negative light, even when the animals passes the test in flying colors.

-"but what if one fails it?" you may ask? well, like stated, they get charges with either rape, beastiality, pedophilia, ect ect, depending on where they failed in the test (as well as failed in life in general). sometimes they serve extra time because they broke the five-point test law itself.

if i have anything i missed or come up with later, i'll probably add it later.

#worldbuilder #worldbuilding

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samssimsarchive · 4 years

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Lazy Man’s Tips for Better Pics Part 2: Editing with FireAlpaca

Photoshop has some amazing tools but can be expensive or lag your computer. There are a number of free alternative photo editing softwares and multiple tutorials on how to use them.

Below I will go into some useful tools from FireAlpaca to use on Sims Screenshots.

Check out the other tutorial:

Part 1: In-Game Tips

So my first suggestion is to check out and download FireAlpaca. It’s free and has a very helpful FAQ section of the site if you ever have more questions. I’m going to cover a few helpful tools inside FireAlpaca to create edits inside Sims 4 screenshots.

So first thing to do is open the screenshot you want to edit. “Open” can be found under the “File” tab.

The things to note here are your layers in the upper right corner:

Adding layers and using filters under the “Blending” drop down is a great way to add effects.

Some quick keyboard shortcuts:

CTRL + L

Opens your levels and lets you make things lighter or darker.

CTRL + U

Opens your hue saturation and brightness bars. You can add more color with Saturation and brighten or darken your screen. I wouldn’t mess with Hue too much unless you are trying to get an odd color effect.

I use these two shortcuts the most. They can do the most work for you.

The other helpful tools I use are under the “Filter” bar on the top:

Unsharp Mask will sharpen up your picture. You only need a very little to add a little edge to your sims.

Gaussian Blur will blur anything. A little goes a long way on that as well. It’s a great way to smear lights or soften anything.

So, if you wanted to add something to your sims screenshots, like say...some glow in the dark stars to your ceiling. First you need a screenshot of the ceiling and a picture of glow in the dark stars.

I got the screenshot from in game and opened it. I found the glow in the dark stars online and copy and pasted it over. So it looks like above.

Over at the layer bar you should see this:

Make sure your layer with the stars is highlighted in blue and change the blending mode to “Screen”

Tip: Under the screen blending option, all black in the photo will disappear. This is useful to turn any photo with an all black background transparent.

Your shot will look like this:

Make sure you are still highlighted on that layer and press:

CTRL + T

This lets you move just that layer. Move the stars where you want them like so:

Now you may notice the white line. It is from the star photo. To get rid of that you can cut it out of the layer using the select tool on the side seen here:

It’s the square with the dotted lines. Select the part you want to get rid of:

Make sure you are still on the stars layer. Then hit delete on your keyboard. And it will go away.

If the space you want to delete is not a perfect rectangle you can use the drop down at the top:

To change the shape of your select tool. The Polygon lets you make your own shape and once you get pretty good with that, you can do a lot of fancy tricks.

Another useful trick is circling a part of the layer you want to move and using:

CTRL + T

This will allow you to move just the selected part of your layer around. It’s how you can move one or two of the stars if you don’t like where they are.

YOU COULD STOP HERE WITH THIS EDIT

And it would be a cute little edit of stars on the ceiling. However, if you want to give your stars a little shine, then I recommend doubling the stars layer.

CTRL + A (selects the whole layer) CTRL + C (copies it) CTRL + V (pastes it)

So on your layer bar you should see this:

Now it’s going to be all black again. Make sure you make this third layer match and “Screen” it under the Blending options.

Click on the layer under your copied layer:

Then head over to Gaussian Blur under the Filter tab on the top bar.

Adjust to wherever you like to add a little glow.

And ta-da:

I would post that as my screenshot.

Now that’s a lot of steps but it gets easier the more you do it and natural once you get used to the keys. Honestly the best way to get better at editing is to just keep doing it and trying new things. See what this filter does. Play with color. Play with blurs and blending and just keep trying new things!

I am not at all an expert and I do the least amount of work possible in most cases because I am much more of a “play then post” kind of person. I am sure there are others out there like me so I hope this can help someone out there.

Editing is an ongoing and forever changing thing. Trends will always be changing so my best advice is find your style. Find what you like. And google methods or ask others advice if there’s something you like.

This is by no means an all extensive tutorial but hopefully it helps out someone and gives them the courage to try out some new editing techniques!

If you liked these and they were any sort of help I might do more in the future. Thank you for reading these if you got this far and best of luck! I’d love to see what you do!

#Tips for Better Pics #Sims 4 #ts4 #Resources #How To #WCIF

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verdiprati · 5 years

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Looking Ahead

[NOTE: this post is now out of date. Check the schedule tag on my blog for the most recent version of this list.]

Hello, Tumblr friends.

I have been, for a while now, hesitating to continue my customary series of posts chronicling the future public performance plans of my favorite singer, Dame Sarah Connolly.

I have decided to keep compiling and updating the list, but I also want to share some of my thoughts on the matter. Discussion, followed by list of performances, after the jump.

As you will probably have heard by now, Dame Sarah announced in July that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would have to withdraw from certain performances while undergoing treatment. She also expressed at the time a hope to fulfill all her other concert and recording commitments.

In the weeks since that announcement, Dame Sarah has made a few further alterations to her performing schedule while also maintaining some scheduled appearances: I myself heard her sing beautifully at concerts in Exeter and London earlier this month. A recent blog post by Jessica Duchen, written after that London concert, mentions that Dame Sarah now faces “a new journey, through chemotherapy.” Chemo protocols and how well individuals tolerate them can be really variable; the soprano Erin Wall has written about how she managed to keep performing between chemo treatments, but chemo can bring on a host of side effects that can make it extremely difficult to carry on one’s normal activities for the duration of treatment, which may take months. (Frankly, just reading that list from the American Cancer Society makes me feel sympathetically ill.)

I am sure you can see the delicacy of maintaining a public list of Dame Sarah’s scheduled performances. There is a lot that Dame Sarah herself probably does not know yet about her own treatment experience and how it will affect her availability (and desire) for work, and we the public may not know whether she is going ahead with any given engagement until relatively late.

I do not want to prematurely write off the next several months of Dame Sarah’s work, and I would still encourage anyone who lives near one of her performance venues to consider buying a ticket. It is a bit of a gamble, but if you can afford the risk of disappointment, go ahead and give yourself the possibility of hearing this wonderful singer.

At the same time, I think ticket buyers for whom Dame Sarah’s participation would be essential to the enjoyment of a concert should be aware that the likelihood of her withdrawal for health reasons is higher than usual in the next several months. What I provide below is the best information available through public channels; I’ll make an effort to update the list if and when I learn of any changes, but editing this list is not exactly my full-time job, and if there is a performance date that you care about, I would urge you to monitor the sponsor’s website and social media feeds for yourself.

Finally, and most delicately, although I consider this blog to be a fairly obscure corner of the internet, I would not want to embarrass Dame Sarah or damage her future employability by chronicling cancellations that might arise from her illness. No singer really wants to be associated with a record of frequent cancellations, however good the reasons for them might be. This consideration has been my greatest point of hesitation. I have, however, concluded that: (a) the circumstance of her illness is already well known in the industry, by her choice; (b) I really hope prospective employers will be understanding of her current circumstances and optimistic about her post-treatment future onstage; ( c ) I am only compiling information that is publicly available elsewhere; and (d) the intended audience for this list is fellow fans who, like me, want to keep tabs on possible opportunities to hear Dame Sarah perform live.

So. Here is the latest edition of my list:

Upcoming Performances by Dame Sarah Connolly

Those of you in Britain might catch a performance in London, Cheltenham, Chipping Campden, or Buxton. Those on the Continent might see Dame Sarah in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Hamburg, Köln, Rotterdam, Basel, or Vilabertran. An as-yet-unconfirmed performance may be on the horizon in New York.

The usual disclaimers:

This is not an authoritative list. These are the upcoming performances by Dame Sarah Connolly that I have been able to learn about from Dame Sarah’s new website, Dame Sarah’s agent's website (Askonas Holt), Operabase, Bachtrack, Dame Sarah's Twitter, and generally ferreting around the web.

I sometimes list concerts that are not yet officially confirmed; you should of course check official sources before making plans and be aware that cast changes and cancellations can happen at any time.

I have added links to venue, ticketing, and broadcast information where available. Tips on new information are always welcome! Please contact me via email (verdiprati [at] selveamene [dot] com), Tumblr messaging, or ask box (plain prose only in the ask box; anything with links or an email address will get eaten by Tumblr filters) with corrections or additions.

Recital with Julius Drake at Temple Church, London, November 25, 2019. The repertoire includes Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Judith Bingham’s Adieu Solace, and “songs by Alma and Gustav Mahler.” The Judith Bingham piece is apparently based on the life of Mary Queen of Scots, as are Schumann’s Gedichte.

Elgar, Sea Pictures with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London, December 12, 2019. In a concert conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano that also includes instrumental works by Tippett and Vaughn Williams. UPDATE: as explained in a note on the LSO’s website, Dame Sarah has had to withdraw from the concert due to her treatment for breast cancer. Karen Cargill is scheduled to sing Sea Pictures instead.

[New! Deferred broadcast] Bob Chilcott, A Christmas Oratorio (Mary), on BBC Radio 3, December 19, 2019. World premiere performance recorded live during the Three Choirs Festival on August 1 of this year, at Gloucester Cathedral. The other vocal soloists include Nick Pritchard (Evangelist) and Neal Davies (Simeon). The Philharmonia Players are conducted by Adrian Partington, and the combined cathedral choirs that give the festival its name also participate. The recording should be available for listening on demand for about a month after the broadcast.

Wagner, Die Walküre (Fricka) at the Teatro Real, Madrid, February 12, 16, 21, 23, 25, and 28, 2020. Co-stars include Tomasz Konieczny (Wotan), Ricarda Merbeth (Brünnhilde), and Stuart Skelton (Siegmund). (James Rutherford, Ingela Brimberg, and Christopher Ventris appear in the roles respectively on the 23rd.) Pablo Heras-Casado conducts; the production by Robert Carsen is a revival from Oper Köln. Single tickets go on sale November 4, 2019 if I read the Teatro Real website correctly. UPDATE: Although Dame Sarah’s name still appeared on the Teatro Real website well into December 2019, she replied to a fan on Twitter on November 3, “sadly I won’t be singing Fricka in Madrid this time. Waltraute in [Autumn] 2020, Paris is still on!” (Note that as of February 21, 2020, this is no longer the case: Dame Sarah has been replaced by Michaela Schuster in the Paris cast.) In late December, the Teatro Real announced that Dame Sarah had canceled her participation and Daniela Sindram would sing the role of Fricka

Oskar Fried, Verklärte Nacht with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London, March 13, 2020. From the Barbican website: “Dame Sarah Connolly is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer and regrets that she must withdraw from this performance. BBC SO are grateful to Christine Rice for replacing her and wish Dame Sarah well in her recovery.”

Recital at Wigmore Hall, London, March 19, 2020. From the Wigmore Hall website: "As Dame Sarah Connolly continues a period of treatment and recovery following her breast cancer diagnosis, she needs to limit her schedule and therefore has had to withdraw from the above concert. We are grateful to Fatma Said (soprano) for taking her place.”

Conversation with Mahan Esfahani at Sir John Lyon’s Theatre, London, March 20, 2020. Per the RPS: "With regret, Dame Sarah has had to withdraw from the event and we wish her all the very best at the current time.” Esfahani is still booked for the event; he will engage in conversation with the conductor François-Xavier Roth.

Appearance at “Bringing the House Down” charity concert at Glyndebourne, Lewes, April 5, 2020. Update: Dame Sarah’s name has been quietly removed from the list.

Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Basel Minster, April 22, 2020. Update: Catriona Morrison is now the listed mezzo soloist.

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall, London, April 30, 2020. Update: a statement on the Philharmonia’s website reads, “Dame Sarah Connolly has had to withdraw from this performance due to ongoing treatment for breast cancer. We are grateful to Claudia Mahnke for stepping in. Dame Sarah intends to return to performing later this year.”

[Canceled] Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Resurrection with the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, De Doelen, Rotterdam, May 14, 15, and 17, 2020. Chen Reiss sings the soprano part; Lahav Shani conducts. UPDATE: As of this writing on April 6, the orchestra’s website now explains that “Following the government decision regarding COVID-19, this concert cannot take place on the planned dates.”

[Canceled] Recital with Ashley Riches, Joseph Middleton, and Tony Robb at the Chipping Campden International Music Festival, May 22, 2020. The recital was originally billed as a collaboration between Connolly and Middleton only, with repertoire TBA. Now that Riches and Robb have been added to the group, the program has been listed with repertoire by Duparc, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Caplet, and Fauré. The Festival website explains, “Following treatment for breast cancer Dame Sarah has made changes to this programme to reduce her workload while her recovery continues. She hopes very much the audience will enjoy the variety these changes afford.” UPDATE: As of March 23, the entire festival has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Canceled] Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Resurrection with the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Köln Philharmonie, May 27, 2020. Chen Reiss sings the soprano part; Lahav Shani conducts. (A repeat of the program from Rotterdam, above.) UPDATE: See the note on the May 14-17 concerts, above.

[Canceled] Recital at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, June 6, 2020. With Malcolm Martineau. The program includes Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Debussy’s Trois chansons de Bilitis, and various works by Hugo Wolff, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Cecile Chaminade. UPDATE: as of this writing on April 14, I am now observing the word “Annulé” at the bottom of the concert information page (below the word “Tarifs”), which I take to mean that the concert has been canceled.

[Canceled] Mahler, Symphony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand with the Wiener Symphoniker at the Musikverein, Vienna, June 12 and 13, 2020. Three Vienna choirs add their forces; Philippe Jordan conducts. The other scheduled vocal soloists are Camilla Nylund, Irène Theorin, Martina Janková, Michaela Schuster, Burkhard Fritz, Iain Paterson, and John Relyea. UPDATE: Although the informational pages for these concerts do not mention their cancellation, the Wiener Symphoniker website has a news post explaining that the Austrian government has canceled all indoor events with more than 100 participants through the end of June, and thus the orchestra’s public performances will not take place during this time period.

[Canceled] Duruflé, Requiem with the Choir of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, at Ferrandou Musique in Beaulieau-sur-Dordogne, Turenne, and Carennac, France, June 20-22, 2020. UPDATE: this series of concerts is now marked with a “CANCELED” banner on the Ferrandou Musique website.

[Canceled] Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde (in a chamber arrangement) at the Proms at St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb, July 2, 2020. With Andrew Staples and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon. The orchestra played the same arrangement, with the same vocalists, in 2017; here’s the (very positive) Bachtrack review. UPDATE: Although, oddly, I can find no direct reference to the cancellation of this concert or of the whole festival on the Proms’ website, a tweet from the Proms at St Judes on March 24 announced the cancellation of the 2020 festival.

[Canceled] Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde (in a chamber arrangement) at the Cheltenham Music Festival, July 3, 2020. With Andrew Staples and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon. UPDATE: On April 7, the Senior Management Board of the Cheltenham Festivals announced that the 2020 Cheltenham Music Festival is canceled (along with its sister Jazz and Science Festivals).

[Canceled] Recital at the Buxton International Festival, July 11, 2020. With Joseph Middleton. Songs by Poulenc, Duparc, Mahler, and Schumann. Note the noon hour and the short duration of this performance. UPDATE: Although I am late to pick up the news, cancellation of the Buxton International Festival was apparently announced on March 18.

[Canceled] Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde (in a chamber arrangement) at Wigmore Hall, London, July 17, 2020. With Andrew Staples and the Aurora Chamber orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon. UPDATE: On March 30, Wigmore Hall announced that it would close for the remainder of the ’19- ’20 season and all performances through July 31 would be canceled.

[Canceled] Recital at Schubertíada Vilabertran, August 21, 2020. With Malcolm Martineau. Songs by Mendelssohn, Liszt, Elgar, Debussy, Ravel, and Chaminade. UPDATE: Although the Schubertíada announced on June 10 that it would go ahead with a schedule of live concerts, Dame Sarah’s has been eliminated. The Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reports that “[el] concierto con Sarah Connolly ha caído por cuestiones de salud de la mezzo británica” (the concert with Sarah Connolly has fallen due to the British mezzo’s health concerns).

[Canceled] Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, with the MDR Rundfunkchor and Sinfonieorchester Basel, in Basel, August 26, 2020. Christina Landshamer sings the soprano solo and Yoel Levi conducts. Part of a concert with a work called “Epitaph” by Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini. UPDATE: I am not sure on what date the concert was deep-sixed, but the MDR website now marks it as “abgesagt” (canceled).

[New details!] Recital at Wigmore Hall, London, September 30, 2020. With Roderick Williams and Julius Drake; the first concert of the Wigmore’s Mendelssohn and Liszt series.

Recital at Sant Pau Recinte Modernista, Barcelona, October 2, 2020. With Julius Drake. Part of the LIFE Victoria series of recitals; originally announced for November 27, 2019, but postponed due to Dame Sarah’s treatment for breast cancer. Songs by Brahms, Wolf, Debussy, Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler, and Zemlinsky. As of April 30, LIFE Victoria has issued a press release indicating that they still plan to go ahead with recitals scheduled for the fall of 2020.

Wagner, Götterdämmerung (Waltraute, Zweite Norn) at the Opéra national de Paris, November 13, 17, 21, and 28, and December 6, 2020. Update: the roles of Waltraute and Zweite Norn are now assigned to Michaela Schuster, one of a handful of casting changes reported by OperaWire on February 21, 2020.

[New details!] Handel, Agrippina (title role) at the Dutch National Opera, January 17-27, 2021. Finally, a year and a half after the news started leaking on Twitter, we get the official announcement, complete with a bizarre (even by DNO marketing department standards) video of a rubber-covered woman dancing in a ball pit. The production is Barrie Kosky’s (previously seen at the Bayerische Staatsoper and the ROH, and later moving on to the Staatsoper Hamburg). Ottavio Dantone conducts; co-stars include Ying Fang (Poppea), Franco Fagioli (Nerone), Gianlucca Buratto (Claudio), and Tim Mead (Ottone). If I read the DNO website correctly, tickets go on sale June 3, 2020.

[New!] Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (Jocaste) at the Dutch National Opera, March 10-27, 2021. In a double bill with the new commission From ‘Antigone’ by Samy Moussa. Other singers in the Oedipus cast include Sean Panikkar (Oedipus), Bastiaan Everink (Creon), Rafał Siwek (Tiresias), and Ramsey Nasr (Speaker). Erik Nielsen conducts; Wayne McGregor directs. If I read the DNO website correctly, tickets go on sale November 17, 2020.

[New!] Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (Jocaste) with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Hamburg, April 10 and 11, 2021. Even though these concert performances follow on the heels of Dame Sarah’s engagement for the same opera in Amsterdam, the two gigs appear to be administratively and artistically unrelated. Her co-stars in Hamburg include Brenden Gunnell (Oedipus), Tomasz Konieczny (Creon), and Sir John Tomlinson (Tiresias); the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig supplies the men’s chorus. Alan Gilbert conducts. The program also includes Le sacre du printemps. Tickets can be ordered starting May 26, 2020, with payment due six weeks before the concert. There’s some background information on the NDR website.

[New!] Recital at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, May 18, 2021. With Julius Drake. Songs by Mendelssohn, Liszt, Elgar, Debussy, Ravel, and Chaminade. Tickets go on sale June 1, 2020.

[New!] Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Berlin, May 27, 28, and 29, 2021. With Allan Clayton and Roderick Williams, as well as the Rundfunkchor Berlin; Simon Rattle conducts.

[Livestream] The concert on the 29th will be livestreamed on the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall platform.

[Unconfirmed / details TBA] Brett Dean, Hamlet (Gertrude) at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, sometime in 2021-22. Allan Clayton, who starred in the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne in 2017, mentioned in an interview with the Telegraph that he would be reprising the role at an unspecified date and venue in the US. When prompted on Twitter, Dame Sarah indicated that she would be participating in the revival, too (“I shall be misunderstanding my confused boy again”). In a later interview with Opera News, Clayton reportedly specified that he would reprise Hamlet at the Met. The Future Met Wiki places the production at the Met in the 2021-2022 season (as does this New York Times article). Hat tip to Christopher Lowrey, who sang Guildenstern in the original production at Glyndebourne, whose tweet praising Allan Clayton brought the Telegraph interview to my attention. (No indication whether Lowrey will also be cast in the American revival.) Additional hat tip to the Tumblrer who submitted information on this topic via the ask box.

Previous versions of this list can be found under the schedule tag on this blog. This list published October 29, 2019. Updated November 2 to reflect Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from the LSO Sea Pictures. Updated November 3 to reflect her self-declared withdrawal from the Teatro Real Walküre. Edited November 21 to add Das Lied at Cheltenham. Edited November 23 to add the radio broadcast of Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio. Edited December 15 to add Das Lied at Wigmore Hall. Edited December 20 to update the casting information for the Teatro Real Walküre. Edited December 15 to add the Proms at St Jude’s performance of Das Lied. Edited January 24 to reflect Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from concerts on March 13 and 19 due to ongoing cancer treatment. Edited January 28 to add the Wigmore Hall recital in September 2020. Edited February 10 to cross off the “Bringing the House Down” charity concert. Edited February 22 to reflect Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from the Royal Philharmonic Society event, the Basel Mahler 2 in April, and the Paris Götterdämmerung. I also updated the link for the Philharmonia Das Lied von der Erde / Song of the Earth and added newly-available details for the Chipping Campden recital, the Proms at St Jude’s performance of Das Lied von der Erde, and the Schubertíada Vilabertran recital. Edited February 29, 2020 to add the two Dutch National Opera engagements, the Concertgebouw recital, and the Buxton recital. Edited March 10 to reflect Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from Das Lied von der Erde with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Edited March 23 to add the Ferrandou Musique dates, to reflect the first round of COVID-19 cancellations, and to add cautionary notes for concerts up through July 11. Edited April 6 to reflect the cancellation of the Wiener Symphoniker’s Mahler 8 as well as the Proms at St Jude’s and Wigmore Hall performances of Das Lied von der Erde; to add a link to the Cheltenham Music Festival’s announcement changing its ticket sale dates; and to confirm and clarify the cancellation of the Rotterdam Phil’s Mahler 2 concerts. Updated April 7 with the cancellation of the Cheltenham Music Festival and the Buxton International Festival, and to update the link to the Wigmore recital on September 30, 2020. Edited April 14 to indicate the cancellation of the Musée d’Orsay recital. Edited April 22 to add the Berlin Gerontius. Edited May 6 to update repertoire details for the LIFE Victoria recital and add the Hamburg Stravinsky concerts and the Basel Mahler 2 in August. Edited May 8 to reflect the cancellation of the Ferrandou Musique concerts. Edited June 19 to reflect the cancellation of Dame Sarah’s recital at the Schubertíada Vilabertran and the second (August) Basel Resurrection. I may continue to edit this list as I receive new information.

#sarah connolly #schedule #performances

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gamechanblog · 5 years

Photo

UPDATE RELEASE SCHEDULE

First Week of April

Darkness Falls Battle Pass

From the Depths Chest

Mixer Store

Esports Content

Second Week of April

Council of the Gods

*These dates are tentative and subject to change.

MISC

Clicking on a party member’s Avatar will now bring you to the party menu for that player.

New Cosmetic Items:

Gothic Loading Frame

Jormungandr Announcer Pack

Blood Moon Global Emote

The Depths Jump Stamp

Gothic Pedestal

Darkness Falls Loading Screen

Ring of Wraiths Recall Skin

Terror of the Deep Avatar

Spooky Title

Squiddies Avatar

Under the Sea Level Up Skin

New esports Cosmetic Items

Snuggle Party Pedestal

Valkyrie’s Rage Loading Frame

Jump Stamps for each team

Ward Skins for Pittsburgh Knights, Renegades, Dignitas

New Items Added to the Mixer Store:

The Crusher Cabrakan

Pool Party Jing Wei

Foxy Lady Da Ji

Cosmic Sol

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed an issue where some players in match lobby would appear to be in an order that didn’t match their pick order.

Fixed end of match lobby scoreboard always highlighting the far right teammate.

Fixed favorite Global Emote selections not consistently saving.

Fixed an issue with deserter penalties where the old values were still applying.

Fixed Draft Pick match lobbies pick order not matching display order.

Fixed auto banned Gods in match Lobby not having red slash on icon.

Fixed Merlin auto skill turning off when using Ultimate as he levels up.

Fixed Jormungandr sometimes unable to refire Submerge.

Fixed an issue where Jormungandr’s 3 refire would sometimes be blocked by the pulses he sends out while stealthed.

Fixed an issue where Nox could exit early while Jormungandr was in Ultimate.

Fixed an issue where King Arthur could still move while rooted when using basic attacks.

Fixed an issue where Ratatoskr could use Meditation Beads during start of Ultimate.

Fixed tooltip issue with Genesha Ultimate stating higher mana cost for levels 3/4/5.

Fixed Kuzenbo continuing to deal damage with Sumo Slam after the target has used Beads.

Fixed an issue where Janus could use Ultimate to teleport outside of Joust map.

Fixed an issue where King Arthur could no longer build meter towards Ultimate.

Console

Fixed an issue where Parental Controls didn’t properly mute chat on consoles.

Fixed player names not showing on Ranked Leaderboards.

Fixed an issue where a saved Item Builder profile could not be edited unless deleting entire profile.

Fixed stats sometimes not properly updating on Item Builder.

Fixed profanity filter not working for chat text.

Known Issues

For Updates on our known issues, view our SMITE Community Issues Trello Board.

PROJECT OLYMPUS

New Player Experience

Players will now receive rewards for completing Co-op matches, although at a reduced rate from normal matches

XP – 100%

Favor – 30%

BP – 10%

Worshipers – 100% up to Rank 4, then 0%

Console Experience

Console Players will now be able to use a new Set of VGS inputs for communication with other players in the game. Entering this VGS command will bring up the console’s virtual keyboard so players can type custom messages.

The button combination is in the same location for all platforms, mapped to the respective buttons in those spots:

Xbox: X, RB

PS4: Square, R1

Switch: Y, R

UI Updates

Daily Rewards no longer reset when the player misses a day.

Daily Rewards must now be claimed by the player in the Store under Featured Page instead of auto claiming.

The Client Side Store has been updated to the new art style.

PC players can now call roles through the UI in other game modes besides Conquest.

Your Hi-Rez support ID is displayed in your profile now. This is a unique number to your Hi-Rez account that should be used when filing support tickets or reporting bugs. It helps us find your account easier in a Cross-Play world. Other players can not see your support ID.

This refers to where you buy Skins and Gods, NOT the in-game Item Shop where players buy things like Boots and Relics.

Mixer Store

A new tab has been added to the Store: Mixer.

Players can link their SMITE account to their Mixer account to earn Mixer Points by watching official Hi-Rez Streams.

Players that earn a total of 600 Mixer Points will unlock The Crusher Cabrakan skin. You do not need to spend points to earn this skin.

There will be a rotating set of skins in the Mixer store that can be bought with Mixer Points. You do spend points to earn these skins, but it will not decrease your total toward unlocking The Crusher Cabrakan.

Ranked

Matchmaking Rating (MMR/Elo) Returns.

Duo Queue for Ranked Conquest Returns.

Updated Ranked Progression

Updated Rewards

Players will now be able to see their Ranked MMR when viewing their Ranked Stat Page.

Matchmaking Rating will not be visible to others in the client unless they are Masters/Grandmasters players.

MMR will now be visible through the API, allowing external sites to obtain players MMR. Players can set their profile to Hidden to prevent this.

Players will be able to party with a friend and queue up in Ranked Conquest. We have adjusted the rules from the last time this was possible to ensure the matchmaker can make quality matches.

Players in Platinum 1 and Below

Players in Diamond and Above

Players can queue with anyone within 200 MMR of their current MMR.

Players can queue with anyone within 50 MMR of their current MMR.

Qualification Games Removed

Updated TP Gains and Tier Skipping

Players will no longer need to play 10 Qualifying Games when first starting out or at the start of each split.

Players without a previous split ranking begin in Bronze 3, climbing up the ladder by playing and winning games.

During soft resets, players will be reset between Bronze 3 and Gold 1, depending on their MMR at the end of each split.

In the new system Rank will be a better measurement of progression than skill.

Players should look at MMR differences between players as a way of judging their match quality.

It is possible that many people in different ranks could be paired together as an intended part of this system.

Increased the bonus for being a Tier/Division that is far away from your Matchmaking Rating.

Adjusted the rules for Tier Skipping on Promotion to be less aggressive.

Lowered the amount of wins needed for the 50 Gems reward each split from 75 to 50.

FULL PATCH NOTES

#Smite #SmiteBulgaria #HiRes #GameChan #Updatenotes

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toothextract · 5 years

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How to Use Domain Authority for SEO – Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Domain Authority is an incredibly well-known metric throughout the SEO industry, but what exactly is the right way to use it? In this week’s edition of Whiteboard Friday, we’re delighted to welcome Cyrus Shepard as he explains both what’s new with the new Domain Authority 2.0 update, and how to best harness its power for your own SEO success.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, SEO fans. Welcome to a very special edition of Whiteboard Friday. I’m Cyrus Shepard. I’m honored to be here today with Moz to talk about the new Domain Authority. I want to talk about how to use Domain Authority to do actual SEO.

What is Domain Authority?

Let’s start with a definition of what Domain Authority actually is because there’s a lot of confusion out there. A Domain Authority is a metric, from 1 to 100, which predicts how well a domain will rank in Google. Now let’s break that down a little bit and talk about some of the myths of Domain Authority.

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it’s best if you don’t bring it up with them. They don’t tend to like that very much.

So if it’s not a ranking factor, if Google doesn’t use it, what does Domain Authority actually do? It does one thing very, very well. It predicts rankings. That’s what it was built to do. That’s what it was designed to do, and it does that job very, very well. And because of that, we can use it for SEO in a lot of different ways. So Domain Authority has been around since 2010, about 8 years now, and since then it’s become a very popular metric, used and abused in different ways.

What’s New With Domain Authority 2.0?

So what’s new about the new Domain Authority that makes it so great and less likely to be abused and gives it so many more uses? Before I go into this, a big shout-out to two of the guys who helped develop this — Russ Jones and Neil Martinsen-Burrell — and many other smart people at Moz. Some of our search scientists did a tremendous job of updating this metric for 2019.

1. Bigger Link Index

So the first thing is the new Domain Authority is based on a new, bigger link index, and that is Link Explorer, which was released last year. It contains 35 trillion links. There are different ways of judging index sizes, but that is one of the biggest or if not the biggest link indexes publicly available that we know of.

Thirty-five trillion links, to give you an idea of how big that is, if you were to count one link per second, you would be counting for 1.1 million years. That’s a lot of links, and that’s how many links are in the index that the new Domain Authority is based upon. Second of all, it uses a new machine learning model. Now part of Domain Authority looks at Google rankings and uses machine learning to try to fit the model in to predict how those rankings are stacked.

2. New Machine Learning Model

Now the new Domain Authority not only looks at what’s winning in Google search, but it’s also looking at what’s not ranking in Google search. The old model used to just look at the winners. This makes it much more accurate at determining where you might fall or where any domain or URL might fall within that prediction.

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

It’s much better. In fact, Russ Jones, in a recent webinar, said that link buyers with the new Domain Authority will drop an average of 11 points. So the new Domain Authority is much better at rooting out this link manipulation, just like Google is attempting to do. So it much more closely resembles what Google is attempting.

5. Daily Updates

Lastly, the new Domain Authority is updated daily. This is a huge improvement. The old Domain Authority used to update about approximately every month or so.* The new Domain Authority is constantly being updated, and our search scientists are constantly adding improvements as they come along.

So it’s being updated much more frequently and improved much more frequently. So what does this mean? The new Domain Authority is the most accurate domain-level metric to predict Google search results that we know of. When you look at ranking factors that we know of, like title tags or even generally backlinks, they predict a certain amount of rankings. But Domain Authority blows those out of the water in its ranking potential.

*Note: Our former link research tool, Open Site Explorer, updated on a monthly cadence, resulting in monthly updates to DA scores. With the launch of Link Explorer in April 2018, Domain Authority scores moved to a daily update cadence. This remains true with the new underlying algorithm, Domain Authority 2.0.

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

So the question is how do we actually use this? We have this tremendous power with Domain Authority that can predict rankings to a certain degree. How do we use this for SEO? So I want to go over some general tips for success.

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

It’s a powerful tool, but it’s limited. For example, when you’re looking at rankings on-page, you’re going to want to look at the keyword targeting. You’re going to want to look at the on-page content, the domain history, other things like that. So never use Domain Authority by itself. That’s a key tip.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

It’s not linear. Now what does this mean? It’s fairly easy to move from a zero Domain Authority or a one Domain Authority to a ten Domain Authority. You can get a handful of links, and that works pretty well. But moving from like a 70 to an 80 is much, much harder. It gets harder as you get higher. So a DA 40 is not twice a DA 20.

It’s actually much, much bigger because as you go higher and higher and higher, until you get to 100, it gets much harder. Sites like Google and Facebook, they’re near the 100 range, and everything else comes into it. It’s almost like a funnel.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you’re using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

Having a DA 50 doesn’t really tell you much unless you’re comparing it to other DA scores. So if you’re looking in Google and a site has a DA of 50, it doesn’t make much sense unless you put it in the context of “what do the other sites have?” Are they 40? Are they 60? In that regard, when you’re looking at your own DA, you can compare against past performance or competitors.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

So talking about SEO use cases, we have this. We understand how to use it. What are some practical ways to use Domain Authority? Well, a very popular one with the old DA as well is judging the potential value of a link.

For instance, you have 1,000 outreach targets that you’re thinking about asking for a link, but you only have time for 100 because you want to spend your time wisely and it’s not worth it to ask all 1,000. So you might use DA as a filter to find the most valuable link targets. A DA 90 might be more valuable than a DA 5 or a 10.

But again, you do not want to use it in isolation. You’d be looking at other metrics as well, such as Page Authority, relevance, and traffic. But still DA might be a valuable metric to add to that experience.

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

If you look at a SERP and everybody has a DA 95, it’s going to be pretty hard to rank in that SERP. But if everybody has a lower DA, you might have a chance. But again, you’re going to want to look at other metrics, such as Page Authority, keyword volume, on-page targeting. You can use Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Score to run these calculations as well.

3. Campaign Performance

Very popular in the agency world is link campaign performance or campaign performance in general, and this kind of makes sense. If you’re building links for a client and you want to show progress, a common way of doing this is showing Domain Authority, meaning that we built these links for you and now your potential to rank is higher.

It’s a good metric, but it’s not the only metric I would report. I would definitely report rankings for targeted keywords. I would report traffic and conversions, because ranking potential is one thing, but I’d actually like to show that those links actually did something. So I’d be more inclined to show the other things. But DA is perfectly fine to report for campaign performance as long as you show it in context.

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

A popular one on the marketplaces is buying existing domains. Sites like Flippa often show DA or some similar metric like that. Again, the new Domain Authority is going to be much better at rooting out link manipulation, so these scores might be a little more trustworthy in this sense. But again, never buy a domain just on Domain Authority alone.

You’re going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It’s available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

It’s available in Moz Campaigns and also Keyword Explorer. I hope this gives you some ideas about how to use Domain Authority. Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below. If you like this video, please share.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

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from https://dentistry01.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/how-to-use-domain-authority-for-seo-whiteboard-friday/

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wickedbananas · 7 years

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When and How to Use Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Link Count Metrics - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

How can you effectively apply link metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority alongside your other SEO metrics? Where and when does it make sense to take them into account, and what exactly do they mean? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand answers these questions and more, arming you with the knowledge you need to better understand and execute your SEO work.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about when and how to use Domain Authority and Page Authority and link count metrics.

So many of you have written to us at Moz over the years and certainly I go to lots of conferences and events and speak to folks who are like, "Well, I've been measuring my link building activity with DA," or, "Hey, I got a high DA link," and I want to confirm when is it the right time to be using something like DA or PA or a raw link count metric, like number of linking root domains or something like Spam Score or a traffic estimation, these types of metrics. So I'm going to walk you through kind of these three — Page Authority, Domain Authority, and linking root domains — just to get a refresher course on what they are. Page Authority and Domain Authority are actually a little complicated. So I think that's worthwhile. Then we'll chat about when to use which metrics. So I've got sort of the three primary things that people use link metrics for in the SEO world, and we'll walk through those.

Page Authority

So to start, Page Authority is basically — you can see I've written a ton of different little metrics in here — linking URLs, linking root domains, MozRank, MozTrust, linking subdomains, anchor text, linking pages, followed links, no followed links, 301s, 302s, new versus old links, TLD, domain name, branded domain mentions, Spam Score, and many, many other metrics.

Basically, what PA is, is it's every metric that we could possibly come up with from our link index all taken together and then thrown into a model with some training data. So the training data in this case, quite obviously, is Google search results, because what we want the Page Authority score to ultimately be is a predictor of how well a given page is going to rank in Google search results assuming we know nothing else about it except link data. So this is using no on-page data, no content data, no engagement or visit data, none of the patterns or branding or entity matches, just link data.

So this is everything we possibly know about a page from its link profile and the domain that page is on, and then we insert that in as the input alongside the training data. We have a machine learning model that essentially learns against Google search results and builds the best possible model it can. That model, by the way, throws away some of this stuff, because it's not useful, and it adds in a bunch of this stuff, like vectors or various attributes of each one. So it might say, "Oh, anchor text distribution, that's actually not useful, but Domain Authority ordered by the root domains with more than 500 links to them." I'm making stuff up, right? But you could have those sorts of filters on this data and thus come up with very complex models, which is what machine learning is designed to do. All we have to worry about is that this is essentially the best predictive score we can come up with based on the links. So it's useful for a bunch of things. If we're trying to say how well do we think this page might rank independent of all non-link factors, PA, great model. Good data for that.

Domain Authority

Domain Authority is once you have the PA model in your head and you're sort of like, "Okay, got it, machine learning against Google's results to produce the best predictive score for ranking in Google." DA is just the PA model at the root domain level. So not subdomains, just root domains, which means it's got some weirdness. It can't, for example, say that randfishkin.blogspot.com is different than www.blogspot.com. But obviously, a link from www.blogspot.com is way more valuable than from my personal subdomain at Blogspot or Tumblr or WordPress or any of these hosted subdomains. So that's kind of an edge case that unfortunately DA doesn't do a great job of supporting.

What it's good for is it's relatively well-suited to be predictive of how a domain's pages will rank in Google. So it removes all the page-level information, but it's still operative at the domain level. It can be very useful for that.

Linking Root Domain

Then linking root domains is the simplest one. This is basically a count of all the unique root domains with at least one link on them that point to a given page or a site. So if I tell you that this URL A has 410 linking root domains, that basically means that there are 410 domains with at least one link pointing to URL A.

What I haven't told you is whether they're followed or no followed. Usually, this is a combination of those two unless it's specified. So even a no followed link could go into the linking root domains, which is why you should always double check. If you're using Ahrefs or Majestic or Moz and you hover on the whatever, the little question mark icon next to any given metric, it will tell you what it includes and what it doesn't include.

When to use which metric(s)

All right. So how do we use these?

Well, for month over month link building performance, which is something that a lot of folks track, I would actually not suggest making DA your primary one. This is for a few reasons. So Moz's index, which is the only thing currently that calculates DA or a machine learning-like model out there among the major toolsets for link data, only updates about once every month. So if you are doing your report before the DA has updated from the last link index, that can be quite frustrating.

Now, I will say we are only a few months away from a new index that's going to replace Mozscape that will calculate DA and PA and all these other things much, much more quickly. I know that's been something many folks have been asking for. It is on its way.

But in the meantime, what I recommend using is:

1. Linking root domains, the count of linking root domains and how that's grown over time.

2. Organic rankings for your targeted keywords. I know this is not a direct link metric, but this really helps to tell you about the performance of how those links have been affected. So if you're measuring month to month, it should be the case that any months you've got in a 20 or 30-day period, Google probably has counted and recognized within a few days of finding them, and Google is pretty good at crawling nearly the whole web within a week or two weeks. So this is going to be a reasonable proxy for how your link building campaign has helped your organic search campaign.

3. The distribution of Domain Authority. So I think, in this case, Domain Authority can be useful. It wouldn't be my first or second choice, but I think it certainly can belong in a link building performance report. It's helpful to see the high DA links that you're getting. It's a good sorting mechanism to sort of say, "These are, generally speaking, more important, more authoritative sites."

4. Spam Score I like as well, because if you've been doing a lot of link building, it is the case that Domain Authority doesn't penalize or doesn't lower its score for a high Spam Score. It will show you, "Hey, this is an authoritative site with a lot of DA and good-looking links, but it also looks quite spammy to us." So, for example, you might see that something has a DA of 60, but a Spam Score of 7 or 8, which might be mildly concerning. I start to really worry when you get to like 9, 10, or 11.

Second question:

I think this is something that folks ask. So they look at their own links and they say, "All right, we have these links or our competitor has these links. Which ones are providing the most value for me?" In that case, if you can get it, for example, if it's a link pointing to you, the best one is, of course, going to be...

1. Real traffic sent. If a site or a page, a link is sending traffic to you, that is clearly of value and that's going to be likely interpreted positively by the search engines as well.

You can also use...

2. PA

3. DA. I think it's pretty good. These metrics are pretty good and pretty well-correlated with, relatively speaking, value, especially if you can't get at a metric like real traffic because it's coming from someone else's site.

4. Linking root domains, the count of those to a page or a domain.

5. The rankings rise, in the case where a page is ranking position four, a new link coming to it is the only thing that's changed or the only thing you're aware of that's changed in the last few days, few weeks, and you see a rankings rise. It moves up a few positions. That's a pretty good proxy for, "All right, that is a valuable link." But this is a rare case where you really can control other variables to the extent that you think you can believe in that.

6. I like Spam Scor for this as well, because then you can start to see, "Well, are these sketchier links, or are these links that I can likely trust more?"

Last one,

So I think this is one that many, many SEOs do. We have a big list of links. We've got 50 links that we're thinking about, "Should I get these or not and which ones should I go after first and which ones should I not go after?" In this case...

1. DA is really quite a good metric, and that is because it's relatively predictive of the domain's pages' performance in Google, which is a proxy, but a decent proxy for how it might help your site rank better.

It is the case that folks will talk about, "Hey, it tends to be the case that when I go out and I build lots of DA 70, DA 80, DA 90+ links, I often get credit. Why DA and not PA, Rand?" Well, in the case where you're getting links, it's very often from new pages on a website, which have not yet been assigned PA or may not have inherited all the link equity from all the internal pages.

Over time, as those pages themselves get more links, their PA will rise as well. But the reason that I generally recommend a DA for link outreach is both because of that PA/DA timing issue and because oftentimes you don't know which page is going to give you a link from a domain. It could be a new page they haven't created yet. It could be one that you never thought they would add you to. It might be exactly the page that you were hoping for, but it's hard to say.

2. I think linking root domains is a very reasonable one for this, and linking root domains is certainly closely correlated, not quite as well correlated, but closely correlated with DA and with rankings.

3. Spam Score, like we've talked about.

4. I might use something like SimilarWeb's traffic estimates, especially if real traffic sent is something that I'm very interested in. If I'm pursuing no followed links or affiliate links or I just care about traffic more than I care about rank-boosting ability, SimilarWeb has got what I think is the best traffic prediction system, and so that would be the metric I look at.

So, hopefully, you now have a better understanding of DA and PA and link counts and when and where to apply them alongside which other metrics. I look forward to your questions. I'll be happy to jump into the comments and answer. And we'll see you again next time for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

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devontroxell · 4 years

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5 Simple Steps to Set Up Your TikTok Ads

If you haven’t taken up TikTok during quarantine, power to you. I was a doubter for some time, but let me tell you: This platform is addictive in all the right ways. Not only is there something for everyone (dance Tiktok, activist TikTok, beauty TikTok, beans TikTok), you will inevitably learn new skills and songs. Oh, the songs! It’s also basically a free comedy show for as long as you can swipe—or until you get a Netflix-like warning that tells you to be responsible and stop scrolling. Guilty.

My point? If you’re not on TikTok, you should be. And your business should be, too. The platform is quickly surpassing Instagram for youth engagement metrics and if your audience is there, that’s where you should be speaking their language. In this guide, I’m going through how to get started with TikTok advertising in five simple steps. Plus, I’ll share how to report on your ads.

But first, let’s talk about why you should be advertising on TikTok.

Why TikTok ads?

TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform with more than 2 billion downloads to date. Particularly in this pandemic-world, TikTok can be a whiff of fresh air for people looking for new and funny ways to connect with each other by creating their own content.

TikTok was downloaded 87 million times just last month.

While TikTok doesn’t release audience data, reports confirm that their user base is expanding from Gen Z to Millennials; however, 67% of users are under the age of 29. They have about 800 million MAU (monthly active users), and 65 million of those are in the US.

5 steps to set up your TikTok ads

TikTok advertising is structured in three layers: ad campaigns, ad groups, and ads. In this section, I’m going to walk you through the steps to create each of these to get your TikTok ads up and running.

Step #1: Create a business account

Even if you already have a personal TikTok account, you’ll need to create an account specifically for your business—I would recommend using your business email here. In the past, you had to get your business approved to advertise on the platform, but now anyone can get in and start launching campaigns.

Step #2: Create an ad campaign

Once you log in, TikTok will take you straight to the campaign creation. Lucky you. If you’d like to poke around before getting started, you can easily navigate back via the “Campaign” tab. Truly, this platform is very simple (almost barebones), so you cannot get lost.

Remember to name your campaign and set your budget in the settings! A nice feature on TikTok: You can easily start a creative split test at the campaign level.

Once you’ve named your campaign and set your budget, the time has come. You need to choose an advertising objective for your campaign. Like most ad platforms, TikTok breaks it down for you. Let’s run through the options.

Advertising objectives

Your first and most top-of-funnel option is awareness: launch a reach campaign. This type of campaign is purely for branding purposes and will not include a call-to-action and simply aims to show your advertisement to as many users as possible.

A bit more down-funnel, consideration objectives are fairly clear-cut. Use your advertising spend on TikTok to drive users to your site, download your mobile app, or increase the views on your branded video on TikTok. This type of ad would look a bit like the one below.

Last but not least: conversion. This is the choose-your-own-adventure campaign, where you get to pick the end goal, whether it is opting into an email newsletter, registering for an account, or making a purchase on your e-commerce site.

Step #3: Select an ad group

This is where things get operational. Here you’ll choose the ad placements, details, budgeting and billing, and third-party tracking. Ad details will vary based on your campaign objective, but should be pretty straight-forward. For example, if you chose “traffic” as your objective, the ad details will need to identify if you’re driving users to your website or an app and exactly where you want them to land.

Reminder: If you are driving deeper-funnel actions, you’ll need to place a TikTok pixel on your site to capture those users. This is just like placing a pixel for Facebook or Twitter; feel free to pop it into your Google Tag Manager and go.

Placement

TikTok gives you a few options when choosing your ad placement, but only for certain campaign objectives. TikTok, like Facebook, has a “family of apps” that you can advertise on—like BuzzVideo, Pangle, News Republic—but these are mostly useful if you’re advertising outside the US. You can choose to have your ads automatically placed across these apps according to TikTok’s algorithm, or you can specify where you want your ads to appear. Get more details from TikTok here.

Targeting

There’s been some complaints about TikTok’s audience targeting, or lack thereof, which I don’t totally disagree with. Like the ad manager, the targeting options are pretty basic. The only demographics you can target are based on gender, age, location, and language.

The most in-depth targeting is under “interests,” which includes a variety of topics people follow on TikTok, from apparel and appliances down to tech and travel. These interest categories are pretty broad (and who is following appliances on TikTok?!), so where you get the most bang for your buck will be through creating a custom or lookalike audience from your existing database.

Finally, you can target by device type and connection type—which is pretty interesting, I’ve never heard of targeting people who only have 2G ...

Budget and bidding

Fill in your daily budget, and if you selected a split test in the previous step, select the dates that you want it to run. You can then choose your bid per click, or conversion, or view (whatever goal you set for the campaign), the delivery type, and input any third party tracking links you might want to include for your analytics. Here is a full list of third-party measurement platforms that TikTok supports.

Keep in mind, your daily budget needs to be $20 and up. You can choose dayparting and frequency caps in this section if you know what times your target audience is most active on TikTok.

Step #4: Create your TikTok ads

If your business doesn’t have an in-house creative team or a creative agency or a videographer on the team, fear not. TikTok truly is the platform for user-generated content, and they will hold your hand through the ad creation process.

Check out the screenshot below for specs. The best (BEST!) part of creating TikTok ads is that the platform will help you create a video with a matching background track from uploaded imagery. Typically, I wouldn’t recommend creating a video out of stock images, but TikTok videos are short and casual. The less polished it looks, the more engaging it could be.

If you select “Create a Video” and then “Video Generator,” you’ll see the option for “Smart Video.”

According to TikTok, the smart video generator will cut your added video transitions to the music you’ve selected, according to the number of images you uploaded. They recommend uploading multiple images or videos in order to make it work properly. Check out the interface with options below.

For TikTok ads, they’ll appear on a user’s For You page in the feed. After the video ad ends, it’ll freeze on the last frame and give the user a call to action—which is why they ask for the final frame above.

You can also create a video from imagery on your website’s landing page. This is mostly for ecommerce sites with product pages or mobile apps, but TikTok will grab images straight from your landing page, match them up with music appropriately, and make them into lovely ads.

As always, test, test, test. Try out different imagery and music for the same message. Focus on one simple message and test different calls to action. Show people using your product. Leverage hashtags, because TIkTok users absolutely use them for search for content.

Step #5: Set up billing and payment

You’re almost home free. Just input your billing info and payment and you’ll be good to start running TikTok ads!

Reporting on your TikTok ads

TikTok has a dashboard that displays all the data from your ads within the timeframe you’ve selected. The dashboard can be filtered according to your goal (e.g., CPM or CPC), and any of the settings you selected when setting up your ad group. Best of all, TikTok lets you export your reports! This feature is so handy when you need to show your CMO that your TikTok ads are killing it among users interested in cars and sports.

You can also create custom reports to ease your weekly reporting. These can be created from templates that TikTok provides or crafted from scratch. Here is a taste of the metrics and dimensions at your disposal.

Schedule these reports to run at a specific frequency, and ta-da! Your team will have a handy-dandy email with the attached report daily, weekly, or on specific days of the month. Just remember, anyone who gets the email will need to have access to your TikTok Ads Manager.

Remember, if managed ads aren’t your cup of tea, there are tons of influencers on the platform (seriously, TikTok has been paying influencers to join), so see what could make an impact based on your budget. Micro-influencers can make a big splash in a local market. TikTok even has their own platform for partnering with these influencers, making it much easier on you to find a good match.

Now you’re ready to crush TikTok ads!

Drumroll, please … you’re ready for TikTok advertising! Good luck out there. And if you’ve launched a particularly successful campaign, we want to see it!

5 Simple Steps to Set Up Your TikTok Ads published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

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geeksperhour · 5 years

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via Screaming Frog

Unless you’re lucky enough to operate in a monopoly, competition will be an everyday part of your business. Online is no different. Knowing who you’re fighting for visibility in SERPs is the first step to building a watertight SEO strategy.

This post will explore how to find your competitors and analyse their backlink profiles. If all goes to plan, you’ll find weaknesses you can exploit and strengths you can use to inspire future campaigns.

To illustrate the process, we’ll be using an imaginary chemistry facts website as our ‘new’ site in need of a strategy. This site wants to rank for keywords including [chemistry facts], [chemistry revision] and [learn chemistry].

Finding the Competition

The first step in any competitor analysis is finding competitors to analyse. To do this the easiest way is to run a Google Search for your target keywords.

From these searches, we can identify our main SEO rivals. While these competitors may not necessarily offer the exact same things as our site, they all compete for the same key search phrases.

This is an important point: SEO competitors may not overlap with direct business competitors. Being aware of this will save you a lot of headaches further down the line.

Once you have your list of competitors, I recommend narrowing down to ten or fewer. This keeps the analysis manageable while still being in-depth enough to provide insight.

Competitor Visibility

Now you need to see which of these competitors are within reach and which are dominating currently. Splitting your competitors into two tiers can be useful; realistic ones you can target over the short to medium term, and ambitious competitors that’ll take sustained investment and effort to overtake.

The way to assess this is by looking at your competitors’ visibility in SERPs. SISTRIX is one tool that measures this metric, and the way it is calculated is as follows.

First, SISTRIX takes a sample of the top 100 search positions for one million keywords or keyword combinations. (As a comparison, the Oxford English Dictionary contains about 120,000 words). It then weights the results according to position and search volume for a keyword. (See here for more detail about the visibility index).

Enter your first competitor into the SISTRIX toolbar (we’ve chosen ZMEScience) and scroll to their visibility index. Next, click on the cog in the top right corner and then ‘Compare Data in Chart’. This allows a comparison of up to 4 websites’ visibilities. Enter the rest of your first batch of competitors and hit ‘Compare’.

You may have one visibility that’s so large that it doesn’t let you see the others clearly. If that’s the case, set it aside for now and replace with another competitor until you have a graph that’s readable. These will be our realistic competitors. The ones you’ve set aside will be your ambitious, longer-term competition.

Clicking the cog again and selecting ‘Show More Pins’ allows SISTRIX to show the dates of known Google algorithm updates. It’s interesting to note if any competitors have surges or drops in visibility that coincide with these dates.

From the above graph we can see that RevisionWorld (in blue) surged after the second Medic Update (pin M). Conversely, ZMEScience (red) has dropped dramatically after the June 2019 Core Update (pin O).

You can use this to inform your strategy; is there anything surging competitors are doing that you aren’t? Or is there something you’re getting away with, but another competitor has been hit for?

You can also use other tools to measure your visibility. Searchmetrics has a nice feature that allows you to see how many keywords you share with your competitors. As before, we’ve chosen ZMEScience to be our representative example.

From this we can see that ZMEScience shares a lot of its keywords with a lot of high-authority sites such as the Encyclopedia Britannica and National Geographic. These would obviously be considered long-term competitors that we wouldn’t be able to target immediately.

Finally, SEMrush also shows something similar. Its Competitive Positioning Map shows competitors by organic traffic and the number of keywords they are ranking in the top 20 Google results for. The size of the bubble represents a website’s visibility in SERPs.

SERP Analysis

If there is one particular keyword that you are targeting, it can be worth analysing the SERP for this keyword. For example, what is the type of content ranking for this query?

The results that Google shows can give you insight into what it thinks the intent behind that search is. If the results are all guides, blog posts and listicles, then it is fair to assume that the intent is informational. People are looking for information in this instance, so to rank for this query you’ll have to provide that information.

Looking at the SERP for [chemistry facts], this is exactly what we get. All ten organic results are information pages, which shouldn’t really be surprising. People aren’t generally looking to buy facts. (But if you know someone who is, send them my way. I’ve got some good ones).

Moz’s SERP Analysis section contains useful metrics such as overall Keyword Difficulty, as well as individual Domain Authority and Page Authority scores for each result. Keyword Difficulty estimates how easy it is to rank above the current competitors for that query; the lower the score, the better.

The SERP analysis results can also be used to get an idea of what you might need to achieve to compete.

Using minimum and average metrics for the top ten results can be one way to do this. In this Google Sheet, I’ve created a SERP analysis template (in the tab imaginatively named SERP Analysis). You will need to make a copy before you can do anything.

Fill this in with the Domain and Page Authority for each result, as well as the number of Referring Domains to both the page and overall domain. You should see something like the following:

This gives the minimum and average for each of the metrics mentioned above. As we should anticipate, both the number and quality of referring domains is important in order to rank well.

These numbers should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt; we will not need 62,000 referring domains just to compete. In this case the very high number to ThoughtCo skews the averages high.

Nevertheless, it remains useful to see all the numbers in one place to give an overview of where your competitors are.

Backlink Profile Analysis

Now you can take a deeper dive into the backlink profile of your immediate competition. Using a mixture of metrics from three well-known SEO tools (Moz, Ahrefs and Majestic) allows a more detailed comparison than using any one alone.

When doing comparative work like this, it’s important to make it as efficient as possible. All three SEO tools have a comparison part where you can submit multiple URLs rather than doing it one-by-one.

Moz has its Compare Link Profile section under Link Research, Ahrefs has a Batch Analysis tool, and Majestic has a Comparator section. With Ahrefs, make sure you use the ‘Live’ index to make sure the data is as up to date as possible.

Note that you can’t directly compare numbers from different sources as they are calculated differently. It’s also worth noting that you should judge numbers relative to your site rather than in absolute terms.

Preparing a table like the below allows an overall look at each competitor’s backlink profile. It also makes it easy to note any outliers that you need to investigate further.

Out of the metrics, Referring Domains and Domain Authority (DA) are particularly important. We often see a large correlation between these and SEO performance.

Referring Domains is the number of separate websites linking to a given site, while DA (a score out of 100) is an estimation of the quality of these links.

From this, we can see that ZMEScience has by far and away the highest quality link profile. It has the highest number of Referring Domains and the highest DA. Therefore, it’s interesting to see from the visibility graph that it’s not as visible as RevisionWorld.

It is also worth noting that RevisionScience and RevisionWorld have nearly the same number of backlinks. These come from 200 and 1,500 referring domains respectively.

This implies that a large proportion of the backlinks to RevisionScience may be low-quality links, potentially due to mass submission or scraper sites. This should be a competitor our site should look to be challenging, but not replicating in terms of linking.

Link Quality

You can also compare competitors by link quality. In theory, links from domains with a higher DA (Moz) or Domain Rating (Ahrefs) score should pass more authority to the linked site.

Moz shows this by default, segmenting DA into batches of 10: 0-10, 11-20 and so on. You can see this in Moz’s Link Explorer. Simply input your competitor’s domain and hit enter. Scroll down and the bottom-right chart should look like the below (for ZMEScience).

If you want to use Ahrefs to segment referring domains, it gets a little more involved. However, this has the advantage of being able to compare competitors side-by-side.

We segment the Domain Rating scores as follows:

100 to 70 – Most Valuable

69 to 50 – Valuable

49 to 30 – Average

29 to 0 – Low Value

To do this go back to your Ahrefs Batch Analysis and click on the Total number of Referring Domains for the top competitor. This will bring up the Referring Domains report for this website.

Export this to a CSV file, then filter Column C by the Domain Rating segments shown above. (Filter dropdown > Number Filters > Between…)

Make a copy of the Google Sheet template found here. Paste the number of overall Referring Domains for each segment into the template (Columns H onwards). Repeat this for all segments and all competitors until the chart is fully populated. For our science competitors, we see the following.

This visualisation allows a quick comparison of how many of each site’s referring domains falls under the segments described above. The proportions are also represented as a table in the template.

In this case, the table is clearer due to the comparatively high number of referring domains to ZMEScience. We can see the vast majority of the other sites’ referring domains are the lowest quality. This would suggest by targeting high-quality sites with our content, our new website would have an advantage.

Top Pages

Looking at a site’s most-linked to pages is a good way of understanding what linking work it’s been up to. If you can find out what works for your competitors, you can try something similar for yourself.

You can use the Best by Links report from Ahrefs to investigate this. (Enter domain or blog subfolder/subdomain > Pages > Best by links).

When looking at RevisionWorld, we see that one of its top pages is a revision calendar creator. This has 27 referring domains and over 1,700 dofollow backlinks.

Therefore, our new site could look at creating something similar, but even better. We could then target those sites that link to the now inferior content and ask them to link back to our new piece.

To find these sites to target, simply click on the number of referring domains in the Top Pages report.

Link Growth

Finally, you can study competitors’ backlink growth. The rate at which they’re acquiring referring domains gives you a rough target to aim for with your site’s link building efforts.

Ahrefs’ Domain Comparison shows this in a visual way. Enter the URLs of your competitors into the boxes and hit ‘Compare’.

This shows at what rate competitors’ backlink profiles have been growing or declining.

Consistent growth, as seen for ZMEScience, can be natural or the result of long-term link building work.

RevisionWorld has experienced more inconsistent growth over the last five years. (I have removed ZMEScience for clarity – click its name in the legend to achieve this).

From this we can see rapid growth between October 2015 and March 2016.

By looking at Ahrefs’ New Referring Domains report (Enter domain > Referring domains > New), you can work out what might have caused this.

If most of the links point to the same page, then it’s likely down to a piece of content going viral. But if most of the added domains look spammy, it it’s more likely to be poor quality link building. It could also be due to low quality syndication sites which are usually present (to an extent) in most sites’ backlink profiles.

In RevisionWorld’s case, a lot of the new links with high Domain Ratings are .ac.uk, .sch.uk and .edu domains. These link back to revision guides on the RevisionWorld site.

This suggests they’ve had success outreaching their revision guides as an educational resource to schools and universities. This could be something our new site could look to replicate.

As seen earlier, this could be one reason why RevisionWorld is currently more visible in SERPs than ZMEScience. This is despite RevisionWorld having only a tenth of the number of referring domains.

Conclusion

The analysis above will help you find your SEO competitors and how to replicate their successes and learn from their mistakes.

As your site changes and grows, so will your competitors. You’ll need to keep tabs on who you’re fighting for SERP space with. Hopefully one day you’ll be challenging those ambitious competitors you identified way back at the start.

The post The Beginners Guide to SEO Competitor Analysis appeared first on Screaming Frog.

#IFTTT #Screaming Frog

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miami-web-designer · 5 years

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How to Use Domain Authority 2.0 for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

New Post has been published on http://miamiwebdesignbyniva.com/index.php/2019/03/19/how-to-use-domain-authority-2-0-for-seo-whiteboard-friday/

How to Use Domain Authority 2.0 for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

What’s New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you’re using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You’re going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It’s available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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readersforum · 5 years

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How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

New Post has been published on http://www.readersforum.tk/how-to-use-domain-authority-for-seo-whiteboard-friday/

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

What’s New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you’re using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You’re going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It’s available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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ductrungnguyen87 · 5 years

Text

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Domain Authority is an incredibly well-known metric throughout the SEO industry, but what exactly is the right way to use it? In this week's edition of Whiteboard Friday, we're delighted to welcome Cyrus Shepard as he explains both what's new with the new Domain Authority 2.0 update, and how to best harness its power for your own SEO success.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, SEO fans. Welcome to a very special edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cyrus Shepard. I'm honored to be here today with Moz to talk about the new Domain Authority. I want to talk about how to use Domain Authority to do actual SEO.

What is Domain Authority?

Let's start with a definition of what Domain Authority actually is because there's a lot of confusion out there. A Domain Authority is a metric, from 1 to 100, which predicts how well a domain will rank in Google. Now let's break that down a little bit and talk about some of the myths of Domain Authority.

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it's best if you don't bring it up with them. They don't tend to like that very much.

So if it's not a ranking factor, if Google doesn't use it, what does Domain Authority actually do? It does one thing very, very well. It predicts rankings. That's what it was built to do. That's what it was designed to do, and it does that job very, very well. And because of that, we can use it for SEO in a lot of different ways. So Domain Authority has been around since 2010, about 8 years now, and since then it's become a very popular metric, used and abused in different ways.

What's New With Domain Authority 2.0?

So what's new about the new Domain Authority that makes it so great and less likely to be abused and gives it so many more uses? Before I go into this, a big shout-out to two of the guys who helped develop this — Russ Jones and Neil Martinsen-Burrell — and many other smart people at Moz. Some of our search scientists did a tremendous job of updating this metric for 2019.

1. Bigger Link Index

Thirty-five trillion links, to give you an idea of how big that is, if you were to count one link per second, you would be counting for 1.1 million years. That's a lot of links, and that's how many links are in the index that the new Domain Authority is based upon. Second of all, it uses a new machine learning model. Now part of Domain Authority looks at Google rankings and uses machine learning to try to fit the model in to predict how those rankings are stacked.

2. New Machine Learning Model

Now the new Domain Authority not only looks at what's winning in Google search, but it's also looking at what's not ranking in Google search. The old model used to just look at the winners. This makes it much more accurate at determining where you might fall or where any domain or URL might fall within that prediction.

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

It's much better. In fact, Russ Jones, in a recent webinar, said that link buyers with the new Domain Authority will drop an average of 11 points. So the new Domain Authority is much better at rooting out this link manipulation, just like Google is attempting to do. So it much more closely resembles what Google is attempting.

5. Daily Updates

So it's being updated much more frequently and improved much more frequently. So what does this mean? The new Domain Authority is the most accurate domain-level metric to predict Google search results that we know of. When you look at ranking factors that we know of, like title tags or even generally backlinks, they predict a certain amount of rankings. But Domain Authority blows those out of the water in its ranking potential.

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

It's a powerful tool, but it's limited. For example, when you're looking at rankings on-page, you're going to want to look at the keyword targeting. You're going to want to look at the on-page content, the domain history, other things like that. So never use Domain Authority by itself. That's a key tip.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

It's not linear. Now what does this mean? It's fairly easy to move from a zero Domain Authority or a one Domain Authority to a ten Domain Authority. You can get a handful of links, and that works pretty well. But moving from like a 70 to an 80 is much, much harder. It gets harder as you get higher. So a DA 40 is not twice a DA 20.

It's actually much, much bigger because as you go higher and higher and higher, until you get to 100, it gets much harder. Sites like Google and Facebook, they're near the 100 range, and everything else comes into it. It's almost like a funnel.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you're using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

Having a DA 50 doesn't really tell you much unless you're comparing it to other DA scores. So if you're looking in Google and a site has a DA of 50, it doesn't make much sense unless you put it in the context of "what do the other sites have?" Are they 40? Are they 60? In that regard, when you're looking at your own DA, you can compare against past performance or competitors.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

For instance, you have 1,000 outreach targets that you're thinking about asking for a link, but you only have time for 100 because you want to spend your time wisely and it's not worth it to ask all 1,000. So you might use DA as a filter to find the most valuable link targets. A DA 90 might be more valuable than a DA 5 or a 10.

But again, you do not want to use it in isolation. You'd be looking at other metrics as well, such as Page Authority, relevance, and traffic. But still DA might be a valuable metric to add to that experience.

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

If you look at a SERP and everybody has a DA 95, it's going to be pretty hard to rank in that SERP. But if everybody has a lower DA, you might have a chance. But again, you're going to want to look at other metrics, such as Page Authority, keyword volume, on-page targeting. You can use Moz's Keyword Difficulty Score to run these calculations as well.

3. Campaign Performance

Very popular in the agency world is link campaign performance or campaign performance in general, and this kind of makes sense. If you're building links for a client and you want to show progress, a common way of doing this is showing Domain Authority, meaning that we built these links for you and now your potential to rank is higher.

It's a good metric, but it's not the only metric I would report. I would definitely report rankings for targeted keywords. I would report traffic and conversions, because ranking potential is one thing, but I'd actually like to show that those links actually did something. So I'd be more inclined to show the other things. But DA is perfectly fine to report for campaign performance as long as you show it in context.

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You're going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It's available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

It's available in Moz Campaigns and also Keyword Explorer. I hope this gives you some ideas about how to use Domain Authority. Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below. If you like this video, please share.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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jiahaothakur · 5 years

Text

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it's best if you don't bring it up with them. They don't tend to like that very much.

What's New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you're using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You're going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It's available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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daynamartinez22 · 5 years

Text

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it's best if you don't bring it up with them. They don't tend to like that very much.

What's New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you're using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You're going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It's available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

nicholerets · 5 years

Text

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it's best if you don't bring it up with them. They don't tend to like that very much.

What's New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you're using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You're going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It's available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

zhongwaiyun · 5 years

Text

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is Domain Authority?

Is Domain Authority a ranking factor? No, Domain Authority is not a ranking factor. Does Google use Domain Authority in its algorithm? No, Google does not use Domain Authority in its algorithm. Now Google may use some domain-like metrics based on links similar to Domain Authority, but they do not use Domain Authority itself. In fact, it's best if you don't bring it up with them. They don't tend to like that very much.

What's New With Domain Authority 2.0?

1. Bigger Link Index

2. New Machine Learning Model

3. Spam Score Incorporation

Next the new Domain Authority incorporates spam detection.

Spam Score is a proprietary Moz metric that looks at a bunch of on-page factors, and those have been incorporated into the new metric, which makes it much more reliable.

4. Detects Link Manipulation

It also, and this is very important, the new Domain Authority detects link manipulation. This is people that are buying and selling links, PBNs, things like that.

5. Daily Updates

How to Use Domain Authority for SEO

The first tip, never use Domain Authority in isolation. You always want to use it with other metrics and in context, because it can only tell you so much.

Second, you want to keep in mind that the scale of Domain Authority is roughly logarithmic.

Next, keep in mind that DA is a relative metric. When you're using DA, you always want to compare between competitors or your past scores.

So if I have a 50 this month and a 40 last month, that might tell me that my ability to rank in Google has increased in that time period.

1. Evaluate Potential Value of a Link

2. Judging Keyword Difficulty

Judging keyword difficulty, judging when you look at SERPs and see what is my potential of ranking for this SERP with this particular keyword?

3. Campaign Performance

4. Purchasing Existing Domains

You're going to want to look at a lot of factors, such as the content, the traffic, the domain history, things like that. But Domain Authority might be a good first-line filter for you.

How to Find Domain Authority Metrics

So where can you find the new Domain Authority? It is available right now. You can go to Link Explorer. It's available through the Moz API.

The free MozBar, you can download the MozBar for free and turn on SERP overlay, and it will show you the DA of everything as you browse through Google.

Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great day.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes